The advocates for taking action on climate change never fail to ask in one form or another: Why not just trust the experts?

Why have criminal trials? Are not criminal investigators experts on crime and criminals? Why don’t we trust these experts, these professionals to decide the truth? Why do we leave it up to the amateur jury to decide truth on questions of fact? Why are these experts not trusted to ignore confirmation bias, noble cause corruption, and conflicts of interest? Perhaps the difference is the Ph.D. Does a Ph.D. make one immune to human failings? What about a criminal investigator with a Ph.D.?

The truth is that the average person is perfectly capable of weighing evidence on subjects that they are not experts in. Wrongful convictions happen even without just trusting the experts, often due to a jury not being allowed to see ALL the evidence; a biased trial. A trial jury has a limited ability to detect when they’re being deprived of vital information, whereas we the jury of all public policy matters are not sequestered from the rest of the world and contrary ideas and arguments. As a public policy juror I listened to the CAGW arguments and then sought additional information (this was 1994, so no WUWT). What I found was that I was not being told the whole truth, so as any good juror would do, I suspended judgment until the evidence (all the evidence) was sufficient to reasonably draw a valid conclusion.

“WILLIAM COLLINS, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory: This timeline is showing how the temperature all over the globe has changed since the beginning of the 20th century. Look at how warm California has gotten, four or five degrees hotter than our historical climate.”

Does anyone know of any reference for California now being 4-5 degrees hotter? I’ve e-mailed Dr Collins and Spencer Michels (assumed he fact checked his program) but have not received a reply. I did find one report that had around 1.5F warming for California. There was another one that had 4-5 degrees as a prediction for S.California, but Collins is not talking about a prediction.

Visual differences between today’s Cryosphere and DMI ice cover for the same day are striking. This points to a wide error bar as to what can be considered ice covered.
Note: Cryosphere on the WUWT Ice Page is 9/17/2012, while the source is showing 9/20/2012.

Also a “fellow” shooter but decidely female and I don’t know the female form of “fellow”. I was out last weekend doing the same thing. Put some .22’s and a few 35 remingtons down range at 50, 100, 200 and 300 yds. Didn’t do so well. Just put a new BSA Sweet scope on my .22 rifle. Comes with all the bells and whistles and I am still learning its capabilities. I have managed to get a .22 bullet to 300 and 500 yrds on target but am not as consistent as I would like to be.

Anyways, have tons of fun. Don’t forget to “glove” those ears.

Here is an interesting fact: For right handed rifle shooters, the left ear is the ear that receives the greater noise impact, not the ear next to the gun. I know why. Care to guess?

If this link that shows a correlation between a lower Arctic ice extent and increased continental snowfall/colder winters hold up, it will mean that global warming has virtually nothing to do with current Arctic ices extents. That the ice extents were influenced by wind and sea currents. Something that has been claimed by Bastardi et al, and hypothesized my many on these very pages.http://www.accuweather.com/en/weather-blogs/climatechange/sea-ice-and-snowfall-connectio/62144
It may also mean that the Arctic albedo is far less important as a warming multiplier than surmised.

climatebeagle –
“Does anyone know of any reference for California now being 4-5 degrees hotter? ”
Check out this graph from NCDC (part of NOAA). I couldn’t find a temperature anomaly plot, but this one with a 12-month average should do as well. The computed linear trend is 0.73 degF/century, or about 0.4 degC/century.

The record begins in 1896, and the warmest year (1996, at 61.92F) is only 5.65 degreesF warmer than the coldest (1917, 56.27).

Visual differences between today’s Cryosphere and DMI ice cover for the same day are striking. This points to a wide error bar as to what can be considered ice covered.
Note: Cryosphere on the WUWT Ice Page is 9/17/2012, while the source is showing 9/20/2012.

How do you prepare “skeet”? Kidding. Both family and skeet shooting will be rewarding and cathartic. Enjoy……”””””

Well David, my favorite recipe for skeet is the same one I use for snipe. And speaking of snipe, it is not cool to snipe at Californian’s skeet prowess; remember we have the Olympic champion here in the Bay Area; and she is very damn good at it.

Anthony – Take as long as you like. You’ve darn well earned it, and your mods will keep us in order.

Pamela – I reckon you’re fine as you are: my New Shorter Oxford gives the primary meaning of “fellow” as:
“A person who shares with another in anything; a partner, a colleague, an ally.”
Oddly, they give it as ‘rare’, though the meaning goes back to late Old English.

Here is an interesting fact: For right handed rifle shooters, the left ear is the ear that receives the greater noise impact, not the ear next to the gun. I know why. Care to guess?

I didn’t know that. The only thing that seems plausible is that the majority of the noise comes from the expanding gas around the muzzle and the area 180° away from there has the least chance (and least “view”) of the shock wave.

Thanks HaroldW, the trend seems to be a long way from 4-5 degrees.
I think I need to ask PBS Newshour again if they fact checked Dr Collins, at least report that they need to correct an inaccuracy in their program.

The Autumn Equinox doesn’t mark the end of summer. Not traditionally anyway. I find this new fad for pretending that everyone has the seasons at the same time, and that they are marked by the equinoxes and solstices quite annoying.

DULUTH, Minn. – Duluth residents have already gotten their first dusting of snow of the season. It’s the area’s earliest measurable snowfall in 17 years.

Light rain briefly turned to light snow at the Duluth airport Friday night. The National Weather Service recorded 0.1 inches of snow for the day, while weather spotters in Alborn and near Canyon reported 0.3 inches overnight.

A Duluth News Tribune report ( http://bit.ly/RJss7z) says the snow didn’t last long, Ground temperatures are still warm, and air temperatures were back above 40 by early Saturday morning.

The last time the area got snow this early in the year was in 1995. The average date by which Duluth gets its first measurable snow is Oct. 24.

This book is a response to The Omnivore’s Dilemma by Michael Pollan. They take many of that book’s claims and demolish them, to the point of overkill. This book is not light reading, but it’s worth it to see the real economist’s view of buzz phrases like sustainability, self-sufficiency, “small is beautiful”, etc.

Do you shoot all four guages ? Many years ago , I entertained the thought of shooting competitively until I started shooting with a couple of AA shooters who showed me that I was entirely out of my league – probably would never make it past C class . Have fun .

Re: Pamela Grey and Ric Werme: For right handed rifle shooters, the left ear is the ear that receives the greater noise impact, not the ear next to the gun.

My educated guess is that when you put your right eye on the sights, you are slightly looking across your nose, turning your head slightly right, blocking the right ear with your head and turning your left ear a few degrees toward the muzzel.

“A little maple began it, flaming blood-red of a sudden where he stood against the dark green of a pine-belt. Next morning there was an answering signal from the swamp where the sumacs grow. Three days later, the hill-sides as fast as the eye could range were afire, and the roads paved, with crimson and gold. Then a wet wind blew, and ruined all the uniforms of that gorgeous army; and the oaks, who had held themselves in reserve, buckled on their dull and bronzed cuirasses and stood it out stiffly to the last blown leaf, till nothing remained but pencil-shadings of bare boughs, and one could see into the most private heart of the woods.”
Rudyard Kipling

This is controversial, highly speculative, possible coincidence, so if any of this is not ‘your cup of tee’ then stop reading here and go to the next person’s comment.
I keep telling myself ‘don’t believe in coincidences, there must be reason for what we observe’.
Some time ago I plotted this graph of various spectral responses:http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/GSOa.htm
What is unusual here is the spectrum of the ‘Solar Magnetic Cycle’, which is derived from sunspot cycle (odd cycles negative polarity, even cycles positive polarity).
There is the obvious peak at just under 22 years as expected, and again as expected 11 year peak has disappeared.
Problem is the second strongest peak around 18.5 years. Some will recognize this as a luni-solar cycle, very prominent and important in the sea and ocean tides (induces an extra variability of about 7%).
Since moon can not affect sunspot count, question is what is going on here. There is only one possible explanation (excluding sunspot observers mental capacity, being affected by lunar phases) which I put as following:
Sunspot count is affected by the size of a sunspot (larger spots are given higher weighting).
If luni-solar cycles cause hydrosphere tidal distortions it wouldn’t be unreasonable to expect same effect on the atmosphere, this could cause kind of ‘lensing’ effect combined with the observing telescope optics resulting in all sunspots appearing a bit larger then normal, enhancing the sunspot count.
This may be totally irrelevant to solar max-min numbers, but may not be irrelevant to the climatic events if the Earth’s atmosphere is pulsating to the tune with 18.5 year period to an extent of 7% of its density. This would not be observed in the atmospheric pressure measurements since column of the air at the ‘high tide’ would increase its height but reduce its density, unlike water which is not ‘stretchable’ .

Toto says:
September 22, 2012 at 11:24 am
“This book is a response to The Omnivore’s Dilemma by Michael Pollan. They take many of that book’s claims and demolish them, to the point of overkill. This book is not light reading, but it’s worth it to see the real economist’s view of buzz phrases like sustainability, self-sufficiency, “small is beautiful”, etc.”

The Locavore and even more extreme, “loca-consumer” idea (consuming only goods produced in your area) is making the rounds in Germany and I shred it to pieces on economic grounds every time a coworker brings it up. If moving stuff would be expensive, we’d pay more for goods that have been moved… and if somebody has a problem with transportation maybe he should better start by stopping me from hurling a ton of metal 50 km back and forth across the highway every workday before even considering stopping trade.

It’s stupid to such a degree that even the promoters of the idea MUST know this. Well maybe not, but in that case numbers must be a foreign concept to them.

wow 3.4 million I don’t remember predicting that it would go that LOW. 2020 Looks like a good estimate to me for the first year of a summer with no sea ice in the Arctic. Good thing that the US NAvy is planning ahead, we used to be able to hide our boomers under that ice

climatebeagle –
I earlier sent an email to the ombudsman with the NCDC link which disproves Dr. Collins’ statement, asking if they fact-checked it. Don’t know if they respond individually or only through the blog.

Canadian IPCC-nik, Andrew Weaver has recently declared that he will be a candidate for the Green Party in BC’s spring 2013 election. And as you may (or may not) know James Delingpole has entered the political fray as an independent anti-windfarm candidate in a U.K. by-election.

I would be extremely surprised if Weaver would ever declare that human generated CO2 is anything less than the equivalent of a “barrage of intergactic ballistic missiles”. I would be equally surprised if Delingpole would ever declare that CO2 – whether generated by humans or mother nature – is anything less than crucial for the survival of our planet.

If an election slate were to be limited to Delingpole vs Weaver, it’s probably not too much of a stretch to suggest that those who might favour one or the other would consider the opponent as “extreme”. But I wonder if there is a correlation (if not causal relationship) to be found in fear of CO2 and “extreme” voting.

So I invite you to step outside the earth bound voting booth and imagine a virtual constituency for which an election is pending: Delingpole vs Weaver.

CBS News, in an alarming story headlined “Male Genitalia Shrinking”, is reporting that global warming may be responsible for a ten per cent reduction in male private parts over the last fifty years. According to this alleged Italian study: Air pollution has been shown to ‘negatively impact penis size’.

So no hockey stick there.

We may have to call these Italian scientists as expert witnesses.

A reader chimes in:

Here we go again with something about global warming which can be disproved immediately. Go outside when it is -20 degrees (either F or C) and expose the aforementioned item to the atmosphere and see if it shrinks more at that temp or at 100 degrees F. I rest my case.

This science stuff is easy!!! ;-)

(Oh yes, do this in an isolated place or the authorities may haul you off to the hoosegow. They probably won’t buy the argument that you are conducting a scientific experiment on global warming.)

More reader comments:

“We may have to call these Italian scientists as expert witnesses.”

(But the evidence may not stand up in court:)

I thought shrinkage was due to cold, proving that the hockey stick graph really is hiding the decline.

george e smith says:
September 22, 2012 at 10:11 am
Thank you Mr. Smith !! Kim Rhode. She puts me to shame !! My son, who is 8 has shown himself to be incredibly accurate, even at distance. He is a “natural”. I prefer the bow.

O H Dahlsveen says:
September 22, 2012 at 11:40 am
Sometimes we do not see other interpretations of what we write. LMAO. I hide the ammunition from the missus if I go out on the town too late and too often !!

For right handed rifle shooters, the left ear is the ear that receives the greater noise impact, not the ear next to the gun. I know why. Care to guess?

As Ric Werme says, it probably has something to do with the report being weakest 180 deg. away from the muzzle. I used to know a guy who was hard of hearing because he was curious about what artillery would sound like if you stood in front of it. Yes, it’s much quieter if you stand behind a gun.

Dr. Christy goes into the shortfalls of Tmax/Tmin as currently used in
climate models, adds insight into Arctic/Antarctic ice observations, and
gives reasons for doubting CO2 as a main driver for increase near-earth
surface temperatures.

The good folks at PBS, especially their producers, reporters and ombudsman
will never read this testimony for fear of being exposed to fact-based heretical
ideas about climate modeling and the statistcal refutation of lame
assertions of recent increases in “extreme” weather events.

For fear of confusing the issues for their viewers, and fostering another
blizzard of organized e-mail complaints, PBS will never report on the
existance of such testimony.

Range of Trident SLBM & quietness of our boomers are such that they don’t need to hide under Arctic ice. By contrast, high latitude bastions are essential to Russian SSBN ops.

Not that I expect Arctic sea ice to disappear in this century.

OTOH, it apparently effectively did during the Holocene Climatic Optimum. The Team pretends, without good evidence, that the current melting is greater than at any time in the past 1450 years (to their credit, they admit their paleoclimatic proxies are weak after the 16th century, but that caveat doesn’t show up in the paper’s title). Better data and statistical analysis in other studies however suggest that there was more melting then even this extreme year (thanks to freak cyclone on Aug 5, when the trend diverged from the prior low year 2007) in the Medieval Warm Period, about 1000 years ago.

DirkH says:
September 22, 2012 at 11:57 am
Toto says:
September 22, 2012 at 11:24 am
“This book is a response to The Omnivore’s Dilemma by Michael Pollan. They take many of that book’s claims and demolish them, to the point of overkill. This book is not light reading, but it’s worth it to see the real economist’s view of buzz phrases like sustainability, self-sufficiency, “small is beautiful”, etc.”

The Locavore and even more extreme, “loca-consumer” idea (consuming only goods produced in your area) is making the rounds in Germany and I shred it to pieces on economic grounds every time a coworker brings it up.
—————————————
I recall a recent radio show where some local farmers where trying to explain why eating food grown within a 100 km of your home was such a good idea – environmental reasons, sustainability, freshness etc. Turns out they were also major exporters of food.

When I walk into a grocery store and look at the fresh produce, the vast majority of it CAN’T even be grown in my country (Canada). I’m not interested in eating bannock and beans all winter. My house would explode.

john says:
September 22, 2012 at 12:08 pm
wow 3.4 million I don’t remember predicting that it would go that LOW. 2020 Looks like a good estimate to me for the first year of a summer with no sea ice in the Arctic. Good thing that the US NAvy is planning ahead, we used to be able to hide our boomers under that ice
——————————–
There were no reports of dead canaries so what’s the fuss?

Kelvin Vaughan says:
September 22, 2012 at 8:22 am
AGW has caused big brown stains in my lawn! There is no doubt about the cause being AGW!
=====================================================================
Maybe it was just the grubs that promote CAGW? Too much Lew on the lawn? 8-)

I too enjoy shooting defenseless paper and things that go GOOOOONNNNNNNNNGGGGGG! The Steel Challenge is entirely too much fun! For those of you who are curious, check YouTube for Jerry Miculek, K.C. Eusebio.
USPSA/IPSC
alsohttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steel_Challenge

Pamela Gray says:
September 22, 2012 at 9:37 am
Also a “fellow” shooter but decidely female and I don’t know the female form of “fellow”.
=====================================================================
“Fellowan”? “Wofellowan”? “Wofellow”?
If I was on the receiving end of the message, I really wouldn’t care.
“Femailman”?

As a student of Warmist Media antics I was fascinated to come across an article in The Guardian by Mr Ben Goldacre called ‘The Drugs Don’t Work’.
It was a long and interesting. Using many examples it gave a disturbing account of how, dodgy ‘scientific’ research, data publication and hard sell techniques are used to get ineffective and even dangerous drugs onto the market. From personal experience I am inclined to believe that this may in some instances be true.

But the thing that caused my jaw to drop open was when Mr Goldacre,( a staunch defender of Climate ‘S’cience,) went on to describe how, research, statistics, peer review, publication etc etc had been corrupted.

“The concern is that these discussions happened with the data locked behind closed doors, visible only to regulators. ”

“This means that a company can see if a trial is going against it, and can interfere as it progresses, distorting the results. Even if the study was allowed to finish, the data could still be suppressed:”

Those are just two examples of the crimes of ‘Big Pharma’.
Sound familiar?

The article is used to plug his new book called ‘Bad Pharma’ and in it he presumably goes on to detail even more examples of nefarious behaviour and the global conspiracy to deceive by thousands of ‘peer reviewed, published scientists’. Like we’ve never seen anything like that before.

I’m banned from the Guardian…but maybe some WUWT people might like to drop by and tell him what a clown and hypocrite he is.

22 Sept: Bloomberg: Matthew Carr: Coal Era Beckons for Europe as Carbon Giveaway Finishes
European utilities are poised to add more coal-fired power capacity than natural gas in the next four years, boosting emissions just as the era of free carbon permits ends.
Power producers from EON AG to RWE AG will open six times more coal-burning plants than gas-fed units by 2015, UBS AG said in a Sept. 5 research note. Profits at coal-fired power stations may more than double by then, according to a Goldman Sachs Group Inc. report published on Sept. 13.
The new stations, replacing atomic and aging fossil fuel- based plants, will boost demand for emission permits because coal-fired generators need twice as many credits as gas users under climate protection rules…
“The economics for coal are near the best we’ve seen in five years,” Laurent Segalen, a director at ECMF, said yesterday in an interview from London. Buying UN credits for 2013, after they plunged almost 80 percent in the past year, is “an amazing bargain,” he said…
UBS’s estimates for new coal plants show that Connie Hedegaard, Europe’s climate commissioner, needs to succeed in her attempt to fix the glut in the region’s cap-and-trade system to protect the reputation of carbon markets, Mark Owen-Lloyd, a trader at Leap Trading Ltd. in London and formerly at EON, said on Sept. 11 by phone…http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-09-21/coal-era-beckons-for-europe-as-carbon-giveaway-finishes.html

insanity:

20 Sept: TheEnergyCollective: Joe Romm: In The ‘Crazy’ World Of Carbon Finance, Coal Now Qualifies For Emission Reduction Credits
“This destroys the sense that there is some sanity and rationale to this mechanism,” said Justin Guay, head of the international climate program at the Sierra Club. “The fact that we are defending coal plants as part of low-carbon finance is crazy.”…
“It’s unfortunate that the executive board has made this decision given that carbon markets are collapsing right now because of an oversupply of credits,” said Anja Kollmuss, a carbon markets expert with CDM Watch…
“When you look at the contradictory standards set by these organizations, it shows how insane the framework for discussion has become,” says the Sierra Club’s Guay…http://theenergycollective.com/josephromm/114571/crazy-world-carbon-finance-coal-now-qualifies-emission-reduction-credits

Person: Jay Zwally, NASA
Quote: “At this rate, the Arctic Ocean could be nearly ice-free at the end of summer by 2012, much faster than previous predictions.”
Quote: “The Arctic is often cited as the canary in the coal mine for climate warming. Now as a sign of climate warming, the canary has died. It is time to start getting out of the coal mines.”
QuoteDate: 2007.12.12 (about a week before)
Source: Seth Borenstein, Associated Press (AP), Washington DC
SourceTitle: Arctic Sea Ice Gone in Summer Within Five Years?
SourceDate: 2007.12.12
SourceLink: http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2007/12/071212-AP-arctic-melt.html

OutcomeLink: http://nsidc.org/arcticseaicenews/files/2012/09/20070918_vs_20120916.png
OutcomeDesc: Figure 3. The image above shows the different distribution of ice extent at the time of the September 2012 minimum, compared to the September 2007 minimum. Dark gray indicates where ice extent was present only in 2007; white indicates where ice extent was present only in 2012; and light gray shows where ice extent was present in both 2007 and 2012.

“BTW, any progress report from NASA’s chief mission, the Muslim outreach program? How’s it working at NASA?”

Just great. The prototype flying carpet is now in its design stage. A few arguments about the appropriate chants and weaponization have slowed things down. Meanwhile Hezbollah has proved itself to have a rudimentary understanding of Russian short range rocketry circa 1942.

1) Notice how Cryosphere 18 sep has a large area (within dotted box) as open sea while NRL shows sea ice (in fact half a meter).
So 18 september around when the record low was noted, this area is “ocean” in Cryosphere. Then 20 sep, very fast this missing area in Cryosphere data appears as ice.

If NRL had been wrong 18 sep, then its rather a “coincidence” that lots of ice just pops up in that very area so soon after?
So it looks as if NRL was right afterall 18, for some reason Cryosphere first shows this now?

3) And Finally, the ice boarder on NRL is much closer to Svalbard than on Cryosphere .
This IS odd, because NRL specificcally works with ice boarders and shold certainly have relevant satellite photos etc to evaluate thier results.

In both 1) 2) and 3) , it happens to be Cryosphere showing less sea ice than NRL, even boarders.

5 July: Zee News India: Anti-tobacco activists ask UN to withdraw award to ITC
Taking strong objection to United Nations awarding the `World Business and Development Award, 2012` to ITC Limited, the largest producer of cigarettes in India, an NGO has written to the agency to withdraw the honour…
The NGO also expressed surprise that the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (SIDA) and the Netherlands Ministry of Foreign Affairs, which are committed to health and tobacco control measures, sponsored and presented this year`s World Business and Development Award to a tobacco company…http://zeenews.india.com/news/health/health-news/anti-tobacco-activists-ask-un-to-withdraw-award-to-itc_17749.html

16 July: DNA India: Pranay Lai: The curious case of tobacco companies and eco prizes
Late last month, on the sidelines of the Rio+20 conference, India’s largest cigarette maker, ITC (formerly Indian Tobacco Company) received the World Business Council for Sustainable Development’s highest prize for improving the environment and removing poverty. In tow were the UNDP’s administrator and former New Zealand prime minister, Helen Clark, and the top executive of the UN Global Compact. The award is possibly the biggest travesty of justice even by the UN and the World Bank’s weak ethical standards…
Smoking kills more than one million adults prematurely in India…
One study using government data suggests that direct expenditure on tobacco by households can potentially impoverish nearly 15 million Indians annually. Another study has found that treating just four major tobacco-related diseases account for 4.7% of India’s national healthcare expenditure…
Like tobacco companies around the world, ITC supports environmental NGOs like WWF and TERI…
Why does the UN, the World Bank or even the WHO continue to partner and recognise perverse industries like tobacco companies? The answer is simply — money…
Starved of public financing, the UN agencies rely upon ‘voluntary’ contributions like donors, private philanthropies and companies. Private funds are earmarked for specific purposes, thus circumventing ethical control. In the 1970s, such donations constituted a small proportion of the UN’s budget. By 2008, it comprised more than 70%. For the WHO this is nearly 80%, as public health agenda get shaped by private interests…
What is tragic is that Helen Clark, a responsible prime minister and wife of a respected public health expert could not have given this award in New Zealand or any other developed country…http://www.dnaindia.com/analysis/column_the-curious-case-of-tobacco-companies-and-eco-prizes_1715496

July 2011: Guardian: John Vidal: WWF accused of failing to regulate sustainable timber scheme
WWF, which is celebrating its 50th anniversary this year, makes about $500m a year from donations and corporate endorsements but has been criticised by other environment groups and NGOs for its links to forestry, mining, tobacco, banks, palm oil, biofuel and other companies…http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2011/jul/25/wwf-accused-sustainable-timber-scheme

GreenEarthAfrica: Who we are
(Green Earth Africa is a global leader in environmental offsets trading. It specialises in carbon credits, wild life credits and water credits)
Nick Havercroft
Chairman and Founder
He then purchased his own farm and quickly become one of the largest agriculture concerns in Zimbabwe through the acquisition of other farms and companies. He also pioneered the farm to manufacture in the tobacco business in Zimbabwe through his acquisition and development of the Savanna Tobacco Company…http://www.greenearthafrica.com/who-we-are.html

Pamela — get a supressor for your .22. Nothing like being able to shoot without hearing protection.
Well, sometimes you do need it. One time, I was sharing the range with one other person, he was shooting something suitable for hunting T-Rex, and had a muzzle break that directed enough blast sideways to shake the floor. Anyway, he finished what he was doing and started cleaning his rifle. I took the opportunity to remove my hearing protection and carry on shooting. Big mistake. This guy was one of those that believes that after cleaning, you fire a round (never understood that…). he didn’t check, just loaded and fired.

pat says:
September 22, 2012 at 4:05 pm
“GreenEarthAfrica: Who we are
(Green Earth Africa is a global leader in environmental offsets trading. It specialises in carbon credits, wild life credits and water credits)”

Wild life credits? Do you use them to offset that leopard you ran over the other day?

The Locavore and even more extreme, “loca-consumer” idea (consuming only goods produced in your area) is making the rounds in Germany and I shred it to pieces on economic grounds every time a coworker brings it up.

Then you would love this book. Regarding Germany, he says one of the causes of WW2 was that the allies blockaded Germany after WW1 was over and caused famine in Germany, out of revenge.

On a different topic, a fellow in Norway made an animation of battles in the world over time. There is definitely a hockey stick in that. (warning: don’t scroll down the page past the video if you are easily offended)http://www.dbtv.no/?vid=1851274759001

So many well informed shooters! I’m all twitter pated! Yes, because of the slightly turned head position, the left ear directs much of the muzzle blast down the ear canal whereas the right ear’s collection bowl is away from the blast. Makes a huge difference. Always use the best protection you can in the ear opposite your shooting hand. Pistol shooters tend to have equal damage between the right and left ears.

Regarding range shooting, even if the range has been called “hot”, always always look to your right and left before shooting to see if hearing protection is being used and the bench area is safe to commence firing. If you don’t see hearing protection, advise before you shoot.

Here’s another tip. If you plan on covering your shooting benches with a roof, slant it up down range so noise is deflected down range. Do NOT cover your benches with a pitched roof. The noise will rattle your teeth if you do.

“22 Sept: Bloomberg: Matthew Carr: Coal Era Beckons for Europe as Carbon Giveaway Finishes
European utilities are poised to add more coal-fired power capacity than natural gas in the next four years, boosting emissions just as the era of free carbon permits ends.”

I do believe that Germany are also building more coal fired power generation plants which is just fantastic. More carbon the the plants and more food for the population.
The cost of power will reduce and the death rate by freezing to death will reduce.

All we need to do now is introduce more coal power generation plants into Africa so those poor buggers can get a life instead of just existing from week to week and facing death in their early forties. That went on in Europe in the 20-30s, the bad old days.

The gun/ear thing. The left ear is closer, yes, but it also receives the direct compression wave, pushing the eardrum inwards.
The right ear would receive a “wrap-around” wave that would likely be somewhat cancelled because the distance around the head is different front vs going around the back

It may also be possible that the first action at the right ear is a trough that moves the eardrum outward rather than inwards.

Pamela — get a supressor for your .22. Nothing like being able to shoot without hearing protection.

With the regulations in the US over having a “silencer”? Give the BATF permission to sieve through her life looking for possible “criminal” intents? When she already is a frequent visitor of an anti-Administration anti-regulation site that harbors “government conspiracy” nuts?

Save the hassle for when she applies to own a full automatic firearm, get it all over at once.

Although the rejection would probably go quick, as she’s likely already made the HS watch list as a “possible domestic terrorist” by being a climate skeptic. And for being a redhead, they like to start fires. Etc.

“The government consists of a gang of men exactly like you and me. They have, taking one with another, no special talent for the business of government; they have only a talent for getting and holding office. Their principal device to that end is to search out groups who pant and pine for something they can’t get and to promise to give it to them. Nine times out of ten that promise is worth nothing. The tenth time is made good by looting A to satisfy B. In other words, government is a broker in pillage, and every election is sort of an advance auction sale of stolen goods.”

ummm, with all the ocean heat being lost from the storm broken ice in the Arctic, I suspect that it could get very nasty for some of the northern European nations this winter. Especially for those that decimated their electricty supply systems in the name of “green wind”.

Pamela- I just had my first flight physical (class ll commercial) in several years. went to my
Doc said:”Left ear not any worse ,using protection when ya shoot?” uh, yes, doc…
Remember lecture that he gave me about that…
Oddly enough I shoot long gun right handed, and Pistols left.(I’m left handed.)

“………..the direct compression wave………………..”
———————————————————————————-
I`ve used longarms of various calibres and velocities all My life but what really demonstrated the shape of the pressure wave for Me was putting a few rounds downrange from a friend`s Thompson Center Contender in .45/70 in a hot handload , rather than being on the bottom of the list of physical sensations when firing a rifle , ie: recoil/noise/pressure , it runs PRESSURE/recoil/noise

( I had so much fun I never even noticed the bruising on My palm `till half an hour later )

Today here in El Paso I am almost 100% certain that I saw one of those driver-less
vehicles. Looking over across two lanes into the vehicle, I could see almost all of the steering wheel and what looked like a completely human free inside.

I did not see any visible signs of cameras or antennas showing anywhere on the outside.
The vehicle proceeded at a relatively safe speed through the traffic light in the far right lane
and I think it was in the exact center of the lane which here in El Paso is not normal.

I glanced over at least three different times trying to see where the driver was, but I swear there was no person in that vehicle.

I wish I had changed lanes and followed the vehicle so as to verify what I think I saw but that
would have not been a safe lane change as I was getting ready to make a left turn at the light.

Maybe I just had some kind of brain malfunction, but at least I did not see Big Al or Elvis driving that car!

Thomas Jefferson founded the University of Virginia in 1819. He wished the publicly-supported school to have a national character and stature. Jefferson envisioned a new kind of university, one dedicated to educating leaders in practical affairs and public service rather than for professions in the classroom and pulpit exclusively. It was the first nonsectarian university in the United States and the first to use the elective course system.
…Jefferson opposed the granting of degrees on the grounds that they were “artificial embellishments.” (…)

This is the same University of Virginia which has gone to great lengths to protect Mann, who is (purportedly) well-respected as a man of great knowledge and understanding because of those little letters after his name.

So what, does the university think that know-nothing hack Jefferson wasn’t that smart? Must have been a moron, as he never earned a degree? Thankfully in UVa’s modern wisdom, they know you have to have a college degree to be anyone important. Just look at Mann. Once you have all those degrees, you’ve already proven you’re smart, and can go the rest of life without having to do or show anything smart, at all.

Ice: Am glad the planet is not in a little ice age or any other ice event. So, if things melt great. Not holding my breath for more palm trees, however.
Shooting: Somehow we always hit what we aim at. Good aiming, good shooting…hitting the paper.
Explorer I: Still out there talking to us.
Sun: Still works. My tan is proof?
Autumn: The fruits of labor come home.
Science: Never stands still.
Politics: Never changes. Like slug slime, it sticks to everything.
CO2: Think beer and champagne..or gin and tonic with a wedge of lime.
Food: Feeds both the mind and body.
Friends: Always there.

Byron says:
“rather than being on the bottom of the list of physical sensations when firing a rifle , ie: recoil/noise/pressure , it runs PRESSURE/recoil/noise”

I’ve never actually fired a gun, I’m looking at this from a purely audio/ sound wave background.
You have to remember that ALL sound is actually pressure waves.
That you can actually “feel” the pressure first means that it is actually going through the mastoid bones and over-riding the initial auditory signal, and is therefore very intense. It is a very good thing that the ear canal actually helps to limit high pressure waves, up to a point.

This sort of high pressure, concussion stuff can be VERY damaging on the ears. Wear the best ear protection you can get !!

AndyG55 says:
September 22, 2012 at 8:44 pm
“…
This sort of high pressure, concussion stuff can be VERY damaging on the ears. Wear the best ear protection you can get !!”

I can attest to the good advice of that statement.

Many years ago in the US Navy as FTG2 stationed on the USS Canberra during a daylight shore bombardment exercise I was working outside on fire control servos of a five inch gun mount, without hearing protection, when a full salvo was fired from one of the forward eight inch turrets. Never knew such pain and fright was possible – not just the ears but chest compression as well. Didn’t finish working on the five inch mount.

kadaka: the background check run by the BATFE is performed by the FBI. its basically the same check that they do when you buy a gun. The extra part is keeping track of the transfer. If they let me have silencers, SBRs etc. I don’t think ven a redhead would have problems (unless they have a criminal record).

Gun talk! Yeah! Ok, so I have this Stoeger 2000 that costs at least a third of what my Benelli set me back. After the break in period the Stoeger has performed flawlessly. The Benelli has an occasional cycling blip. WUWT?

3-page in-depth report on environmental groups not happy with the Sierra Club:

20 Sept: Businessweek: Ken Wells: Environmentalists Split Over Tortoise Treatment at Solar Farms
Construction of such large-scale green-energy projects has splintered environmental groups. When concern over global warming was at a peak, national organizations such as the Sierra Club and the Natural Resources Defense Council threw their support behind industrial-scale wind and solar installations on public land. Now some smaller conservationist groups object to what they consider an environmentally destructive gold rush…
Similar disputes are playing out elsewhere and show a growing concern among green groups and willingness to block large-scale solar and wind projects when the cost to wildlife and habitat seem to outweigh the benefits of fighting climate change. A surge in supplies of cheap, clean-burning natural gas has also begun to undercut demand for more costly green energy…
Conservationist and Native American groups sued to halt five other Mojave solar projects…
Dozens more solar plants could arise across the American desert West. A July BLM (Bureau of Land Management) plan allocates 285,000 public acres to 17 solar zones. An additional 19 million acres — an area almost the size of West Virginia — may be approved for solar projects.
Janine Blaeloch, director of the Seattle- based Western Lands Project:
“This is the ritual privatization of public lands, turning our deserts into permanent industrial zones that will utterly transform the sites upon which these solar plants are placed,” Blaeloch says. “Even if they are dismantled in 50 years, the desert will be unable to restore itself.” …
The Ivanpah Solar Electricity Generating System is BrightSource’s first plant..
BrightSource’s largest shareholders are Alstom Power Inc. with 18 percent; VantagePoint Capital Partners, 25 percent; and Morgan Stanley, 10 percent, according to a 2011 filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.
Investors in Ivanpah include Google Inc. with $168 million and NRG Energy Inc. (NRG), $300 million. It received $1.6 billion in federal loan guarantees, according to the company…http://www.businessweek.com/news/2012-09-20/tortoises-manhandled-for-solar-splits-environmentalists

25 June: Mashable: Zoe Fox: How Google Earth Is Preserving, Sharing Indigenous Culture
When corporations around the world choose to purchase carbon stock from the Surui people, they can easily turn to the cultural map in Google Earth, to understand the culture where they are investing their money.
“It’s not just about absolute Greenhouse gas reduction, there’s a social impact to buying Surui carbon,” Moore says. “But it’s not just for carbon buyers, interested students and the worlds can learn about this people.”
Since hearing about the Surui tribe’s project, indigenous tribes around the world have reached out to Google Earth Outreach for help creating similar projects. Moore says a number of other tribes in the Amazon, as well as the Māori people of New Zealand, First Nations of Canada and American Indian tribes have expressed interest in making their own cultural maps…http://mashable.com/2012/06/25/google-earth-surui-cultural-map/

The Stoeger Model 2000 is licensed to use Benelli’s Inertia Driven® operating system — the heart of the world’s most prestigious and reliable autoloaders. The Stoeger Model 2000 is Inertia Driven® with only two moving parts in the bolt: the bolt body and the rotating locking head. Simplicity ensures reliability and the Model 2000 is quickly gaining a reputation as the most reliable semi-automatic on the market in its price range.

Unlike common gas-operated guns whose fore-ends conceal operating rods, pistons, O-rings, valves and other moving parts, the inertia recoil system is primarily contained inside the receiver. The results? A trimmer fore-end, better balance, more reliable operation and the ability to fire everything from light target ammunition to the heaviest waterfowl loads without adjustments. And because propellant gas isn’t vented from the barrel into the operating system, Inertia Driven® guns like the Model 2000 stay cleaner, even after hundreds of shots. Even under the toughest conditions, your new Model 2000 will keep on firing!

Might be the long-known GM brands effect. A base model Chevy gets bought for utility, it has to work reliably or else that customer will be buying from a different maker next time. And low end buyers are more numerous than high end, it’s not good business to tick them off.

Take the same guts, put it in fancier packaging with more bells and whistles and slap a Cadillac label on it, you’re selling to people with more money to throw away, who probably have another vehicle and will be less inconvenienced when their Caddy is in the shop, who will accept that high-end performance machines like a Caddy will have their “quirks” and need some extra care.

The Stoeger is bought by those who need a reliable working shotgun. The Benelli is bought by those who need a Benelli.

Gun talk! Yeah! Ok, so I have this Stoeger 2000 that costs at least a third of what my Benelli set me back. After the break in period the Stoeger has performed flawlessly. The Benelli has an occasional cycling blip. WUWT?
—————————————————————————————————-
All sorts of possibilities but most likely ammo related with vague and random cycling issues ie:
1)load (gas pressure or recoil force depending on action ) ,
2)how much curve on the shoulder of the leading edge of the shotshell ,
3)and overall length of the shotshell before and after firing .
It can be 1-3 or any combination thereof
That`s generic cycling problems assuming failure to extract isn`t one of them

Ric Werme says:
September 22, 2012 at 6:28 pmwhat’s wrong with the loud speaker under test? I think it’s time for a new
one!
Did you not see the website address. Bit of paper torn off, it’s an old one from 1960s made in hongkong, you may not be old enough to remember, but things have changed since.

Toto says:
September 22, 2012 at 5:17 pm
“On a different topic, a fellow in Norway made an animation of battles in the world over time. There is definitely a hockey stick in that. (warning: don’t scroll down the page past the video if you are easily offended)http://www.dbtv.no/?vid=1851274759001
”

Not too impressed. While the Napoleonic wars made some noise, the 30 year war that devastated central Europe left not much of an impression in his animation. Also, he didn’t normalize for population, leaving the intended and misleading impression that we’re living in the most dangerous of all times.

Hi Anthony ,
Ive just been watching ‘Conversation with global warming skeptic Anthony Watts’ on PBS Newshour
At 3.53 http://youtu.be/UmIJCGQzCiU?t=3m53s you say “Global warming has become a business .. theres lots of money involved”
How much do﻿ you get from the Heartland Institute and any other sponsors ?

DirkH says:
September 22, 2012 at 4:25 pm
pat says:
September 22, 2012 at 4:05 pm
“GreenEarthAfrica: Who we are
(Green Earth Africa is a global leader in environmental offsets trading. It specialises in carbon credits, wild life credits and water credits)”

Wild life credits? Do you use them to offset that leopard you ran over the other day?
=====================================================================
Can wild life credits be used toward the purchase of a “Gorillas Gone Wild” video?

Shooting and hearing are not compatible in the nude. I have wondered the same, left ear righthand rifle shooters -high-frequency damage. Right Off-hand pistol shooting presents the same side ear in order to get the sight-eye picture. My wondering is associated back to a child’s grade school science project and Doppler. Having been in front of and slight side of a large caliber explosion the pressure wave is significant with the sound seeming to be many-times louder than from the trigger side. Excluding spring-BB gun and 22 rimfire noise most firearms move the shooter towards the rear, righthand rifle the right shoulder is shoved back accenting the exposure of the left ear. It might be an illusion but shooting in the prone the sound seems less. Ground effect of the sound wave? I have not fired a weapon in 30 years without ear protection. There is the old time open mouth additional protection, always producing of some funny.

Pamela Grey, the opposite to fellow or chap or bloke in Australia is sheila. The early days of settlement saw a preponderance of Irish either as convicts or free people trying to escape the poverty, apparently sheila was the most common name of the Irish women and women being short in supply in early Australia. Thus all women in Australia inherited the common term sheilas the opposite to fellows.

Shooting and hearing general comment: Yes, hearing protection is advisable, however you don’t always have the time to take that precaution. Take it from an old retired Marine. Tinnitus is very common in the military.

I doubt that Anthony is paid a stipend by Heartland. If I am wrong, post your evidence.

What you are doing is called ‘projection’. The alarmist crowd is swimming in grant money [$6 – $8 BILLION in federal grants paid out each year for ‘climate studies’, and that does not include the grants (AKA: payola) from NGOs and QUANGOs].

You are trying to deflect from the fact that an enormous amount of taxpayer loot is funneled into the pockets of climate alarmists in return for scaring the public with their false alarms. Because no one gets free money for admitting that there is nothing unusual about the current climate.

This is what we have in Australia :- a Prime Minister who says on National Television she needs to stop people “spewing nonsense like carbon dioxide is a good thing”!
The basic facts of the Gillard/Wilson/AWU Fraud Scandal show that it is not complex at all.
The complexity is in the massive money extraction and laundering process involved once Julia Gillard unlawfully enabled her lover Bruce Wilson to open bank accounts and the subsequent wide-spread coverup and conspiracy to pervert the course of justice by so many people and organisations which is still ongoing!!
The intensive investigation and probe by the equity partners of Slater & Gordon partners into the actions of Gillard centred on TWO Files:
(1) the conveyancing file re the 85 Kerr St., Fitzroy property transaction, held at all times by S & G because it had been deliberately and deceitfully misrepresented to the firm by Julia Gillard as a normal investment by individuals not in any way connected with their positions as employees of the AWU! Although the partners may have known Wilson and Blewitt were AWU officers or employees, Gillard must have talked long and hard to convince them that it had nothing to do with the AWU and that there was no “conflict of interest”! The partners certainly did not know Gillard was in an intimate relationship with Bruce Wilson! In his recently released statement Nick Styant-Browne said “the Kerr St.,conveyance and mortgage were both unexceptional transactions for the firm’s conveyancing and mortgage practice”..
(2) the sham AWU Workers Reform Association incorporation file:- held at all times until early September 1995 by Julia Gillard and deliberately kept secret from most of her equity partners, as well as the Victorian Branch and National Executive heirarchy of her principal client the AWU.
This file could NEVER have been opened on the firm’s system and Gillard NEVER considered doing so as it would have immediately exposed her unlawful, unethical criminal actions. She herself said in the interview:- “I’ve just done relatively small jobs for unions that I wasn’t intending to charge for. Ordinarily they would be kept on THE UNION’S FILE!
The internal investigations by S & G were summed up as “the nature of the wrongdoings alleged required us, if we were to take an adverse view of Ms.Gillard in relation to these events, to believe that she had knowingly participated in a fraud and deceived her partners for a year or more about it”!
It resulted in her “resignation” from the firm because they couldn’t afford to honour their obligation to report Gillard to the Law Society and have another public scandal so soon after the Murphy/Harris/Smith fiasco, which was to eventually cost them hundreds of thousands of dollars damages in 1997.
Any Americam lawyers like to have an input into the breaches Gillard committed?
For an idea of the extent of Union Fraud and conspiracy to pervert the course of justice in Australia, check this link.http://michaelsmithnews.typepad.com/files/qlddelegatesjan96-1.pdf

Pamela Grey
.22, but what kind?? Certainly not .22 Short or Long. .223 would reach that far. 22-250? .220 Swift? Is it a pre-64 Model 70? Or a Black Rifle? Looking for the important information. An inquiring mind wants to know!

Anthony,
Have you ever considered cowboy action shooting?? It’s so very 19th century! You take a cowboy name, get dressed up in period clothes and shoot period (more or less) guns. Just like when you were 13 except with real guns!

2016 is well worth seeing. I was fortunate enough to attend a preliminary showing by the producers. I suspect that they were trying to “go viral” to get around a boycott by the so called “main stream media”. 2016 is the only source that I know of where Obama’s half-brother George is interviewed. You get the feeling that we got the wrong brother for President. For those who would like more information on 2016, this is the official movie site: http://2016themovie.com/

Shooters,
Should your local politicians make firearm ownership impossible, you might consider a move to Texas. We already have thousands of economic refugees from California and the wife and I are political refugees. FWIW, my great grandfather moved to California in 1849. For those familiar with Northern California, there was a boutique restaurant in a former stage coach stop to the west of Cotati, on Stoney Point Rd as I recall. (I haven’t been back since my Mother died nearly 20 years ago.) My Grandparents met there when it was a stage stop. My father was born in Forestville above the general store. My mother’s family moved to the area in the ‘30’s, and my folks met at the old Santa Rosa Hotel back in the late 30’s. (The Hotel was destroyed in an earthquake in the ‘60s. A mall is there now.) I went to High School in Berkeley and Merchant Marine School in Vallejo. I mention this to explain that I am not an “outsider” just bashing California for the fun of it. There is no joy in seeing what is happening to California.

You may be incredulous as to what follows, but it is the truth! My fellow Texans of both (all?) genders will attest. If your mind is not able to comprehend, then you might consider a refugee half-way house should you move to Texas.

One of our most favored politicians is Land Commissioner Jerry Patterson. His political advertisements brag on being the one who got our Concealed Carry “shall issue” law passed. Unless there is a reason to deny you a license, the state SHALL issue it. Basically, if you can legally BUY a gun, you can get a permit to carry it. He also brags on carrying a gun in his boot. (“Brag on it”: Texas-speak for boasting.)

Then there is our Lt. Governor David Dewhurst. When a crazy shot a rifle on the State Capitol grounds (he didn’t shoot at anybody) there was a demand for more security. The Lt. Governor responded in a pragmatic, moderate way. They put portal monitors at the entrances of the Capitol Building to mollify the liberals. But, if you have a license to carry, you show your permit, they check it in their data base, and you go AROUND the monitor. With your 1911, .45 ACP discreetly tucked under your shoulder. It’s cool. Who says that there is no compromise in Texas politics?. My wife felt bad because she had to go through the monitors while I went around. So, she got her permit also. A California girl (Orange County) she takes great pride in having her license. Her sisters don’t understand.

Finally, and I am not making this up. Honest, as we used to say in the Navy, “this is a real No-Sh—ter”. Texas is perhaps the most liberal statein the Union. By way of example, not only can Jewish-Americans and African-Americans legally own a belt fed machine gun, but also Lesbian-Americans! Compare to San Francisco where Lesbian-Americans are prohibited from that privilege. Yes, I know that in San Francisco NOBODY, except for the police and criminal gangs, can own machine guns. How is it that it’s OK to strip the entire population of their rights when it is offensive to strip just one group of theirs??

Steve C says: “Anthony – Take as long as you like. You’ve darn well earned it, and your mods will keep us in order.”
I keep getting this mind-image of the mods walking around with mirrored sunglasses, a shotgun in their hands, a police baton hanging from their belt, saying “What we have here is a failure to communicate”.

David Ball says: “How do you prepare “skeet”?”
Well, it is a little dry . . .

I’ve been thinking about the sea ice situation in the Arctic and wondering if the storm in August might lead to ice gains in the future. Here’s the logic.

While the storm broke up the ice leading to a lower extent this year, it also piled up ice into thicker, smaller extents. As the new ice forms this winter those thicker sections will act like multi-year ice. In effect they act like re-enforced concrete for the ice. It will be more difficult for the wind to move the ice around because it will be heavier and there will be more drag. It might even enhance the freezing process this winter.

By the time next year’s melt comes around the ice will be more resistant to being shipped into warmer waters. Over the next few years this could lead to a quickly growing polar ice cap.

A while back David Archibald notice one of my plots and took off to do some more stuff. Before he gets to involved I wanted him to look at the relationship between SST and deep ocean temperature on a 100K year time frame. The mixing of the ocean temperatures does take a while and tends to make correlations with Solar etc. a touch hard to interpret.

Hengist says: September 23, 2012 at 2:58 am
How much do you get from the Heartland Institute and any other sponsors ?
*****
Hengist,
I don’t recall seeing your handle here before, but then I don’t “live” on this web site. Forgive me if you have posted before and I haven’t noticed.

Welcome to the fire! Sit a spell and have a cup of coffee. (Texas speak for a warm welcome.)
An interesting place here with all kinds of opinions and noted scientists rendering their learned opinions. Even a Simple Red Neck like me is welcome! All opinions are welcomed within reason; a refreshing concept and part of why I like the web site and the people who frequent it.

A suggestion though. The Left in general and Warming Alarmists in particular have become so irrational that a Reasonable Man can no longer determine if what is being presented is supposed to be fact or is sarcasm and irony. It has become tradition here to follow said sarcasm and irony with “/sarc” or similar to let people know that you are really making a joke.

Hengist is or was a regular over at Bishop Hill where he/she was/is a lightweight of the warmist persuasion. He/she already knows the “ropes” and is just delivering a “drive by” gratuitous poke at Anthony. Best advice is to just ignore Hengist.

With no polar ice where are those poor polar bears going to land by 2040? How many met their demise through 2012 record (relative) low sea ice? Best to relocate to them to Washington D.C.? Plenty of food…

Fortunately, by 2040, Greenland will be green again, just what the greenies should be praying for and Siberia will be the grain belt of Asia and the shores of Antarctica will be lined with resort condos, and the green gets greener with all that CO2 we so irresponsibly belching…and the greeners will find a new horse to ride….golf carts making their way through the plethora links to be conquered on the shores of northern Canadian lakes.

Looks like Nadine is back as a tropical storm heading West at 2 mph. Other than that, Atlantic is quiet. Only one hurricane landfall this year in the US. Been awful good on that front since the 2005 season. Warmists must be upset about this inconvenient factoid.

My dear Jack, just a Marlin 60 semiauto .22 longrifle, with 38 and 40 grain cartridges. And I most certainly did get several bullets that far, and 4 hits at 500. By the way, my shooter’s handle is Strawberry Shortcake. I’ll change it one of these days to Penelope Oakley when I can shoot the .22 course clean, 40 rounds, 40 hits, 10 each at 50, 100, 200, and 300 yds. My best score was 37 (missed one at 100 and 2 at 200), my worst score I think was 30 (with a new scope I had just sighted in that morning). All recorded in the competition shoot reports at the range.

This summer I was able to get my Henry’s Golden Boy .38 rifle hitting the 300 yd target. And am getting REAL close to hitting that same target with my .38 single action revolver.

“My question is: Why have the professional “Climatologists” not done the simple work that I did on a lazy Saturday afternoon with my laptop? They must know that water vapor nearly wipes out CO2 in warming the earth, and that cloud and albedo changes do the rest. What’s their excuse for this massive “oversight”? ”

Has anyone been watching Tropical Depression/Tropical Storm/Subtropical Storm/Hurricane Nadine in the Eastern Atlantic? Every day the 5-Day Forecast Cone is radically different. Yesterday they said it was going East, today they say it’s going West.

Looks like Nadine is back as a tropical storm heading West at 2 mph. Other than that, Atlantic is quiet. Only one hurricane landfall this year in the US. Been awful good on that front since the 2005 season. Warmists must be upset about this inconvenient factoid.

Have no fear, the fact that Nadine is regenerating and about to do another lap around the Sargasso Sea will give them plenty of fodder. Something along the lines of “Longest Lived Storm….EVAH!!! (or since satellites were lauched…or since the Weather Channel was launched…or…something).”

=======================================================
Spring and Fall seem to be “Make a Prediction Seasons”. Contradictory preditions are made about what will happen because of Man then, at the end of Winter or Summer, the one that seems to match best what happened is the one that gets the press.

Not sure why I need to wash my hands? The article focuses on admissions by climate scientists that the models are highly innacurate tools to use for time periods as short as several decades, that this year’s ice loss in the arctic is natural, that droughts in the Sahel are natural and more related to the NAO than anything else, and that we’re probably in for a couple of decades of cooling.

I found the prediction of a couple of decades of cooling coupled with the admission that on time scales of a couple of decades the models are useless rather amusing. So what are they predicating the prediction on then? Assuming the models are wrong and predicting the opposite? LOL

R2DTOO says:
September 23, 2012 at 10:45 am
“Has anyone put together the lists of scientists who are skeptics. I have seen the Oregon list and reference to several others. There may be enough in total to kill the 97% garbage. Any references?”

This will not stop the MSM and the warmist scientists and bloggers from repeating it time and time again. They don’t operate with logic. They are busying themselves only with finding better ways of convincing the public. You can debunk it 10 million times and they won’t stop.

The only way to stop them is cutting of the money supply. If you’re not in the EU, voting might help. Not buying media products might help. Etc.

You are a better man than I am. Tried cowboy long range shooting with a Sharps replica in .45-70. Gave up when I discovered that I can’t see good enough at 200 yards, much less 300. I can plead to being 67; that’s why I miss. It’s convienent.

If you ever get to the Austin Texas area, give us a shout. We can travel the BBQ trail (it’s a Texas thing), drink beer, shoot guns, and go to a good Bible Thumping church service. All us Red Necks do that stuff. And, if the season is right, go to a political rally with a stump speach that would put a Philidelphia lawyer to shame. The wife and I would be proud to have you and yours sit at our table.

Magnums are best for hunting and plinking, more co2 that way. :-)
12 gauge, 44 and 7mm rifle.
Bow, Oneidas. Hard to calibrate but, when they’re on, they’re on.

The chicken littles of the world need to stop clucking so loud. They are creating a division as to what science is supposed to be. I might actually listen to them more if they didn’t get so durogatory so much. Like, say that water vapor is the most powerfull greenhouse gas and that’s what all forms of powerplants produce and pump into the atmosphere in vast amounts. An argument like that might at least be somewhat feasible.

Steamboat Jack says:”Shooters,
Should your local politicians make firearm ownership impossible, you might consider a move to Texas.”
Now, far be it from me to instigate a war between states, BUT, NC as long as you’re not right around the Containment Area for Relocated Yankees is pretty gun friendly. It’s pretty common to see a shotgun in the back window of a pickup truck and no one really seems to get uptight. I even pulled through a license check once with my AR-15 and the cop just asked if it was a real M-16. (LOL)

As for fun, for my money plinking beets skeet and CA combined. Give me a bag of balloons, a few hundred rounds of .223 and 7.62×39 each, a few dozen rounds of 9mm largo, .44 magnum, and .308 each, and we’ve got the makings of some serious fun. (The .44 magnum is for getting the ranges’ attention while busting cinder blocks to smithereens.) BTW, I do have some CA guns as well and they are quite fun and do spend ammo ($) at a much slower rate which is nice on those days when you’re entertainment fund is low.

Pamela,
I do have to say 300 yards with a .22 is mighty impressive. I have a bolt action sniper’s trainer .22 with a sweet two stage trigger that might do that. I’ll give it a try sometime in between emptying 20 & 30 round mags and 75 round drums into evil balloons. (Yes, balloons are evil, much like zombies, brainless hordes intent on taking over the world and spreading mayhem.) What kind of drop are you seeing @ 300 yards? (Just to give me a bit of a hint as to where to start my adjustment.)

DirkH says:
I am aware of the origin of the 97% figure. That wasn’t my question. What about the 30,000? in the Oregon petition, the NASA scientists?, another group that was about 1,000 etc. Is anyone running a similar list now? I realize it is difficult to devise questions that really get the answers. I also don’t want another “consensus”. I wouldn’t mind putting my name on a list somewhere.

Robert Austin says:
September 23, 2012 at 8:17 am
“Best advice is to just ignore Hengist.”

Gladly. This has been all covered previously* and any repetition is a waste of time. [Hint: during *Gleickgate]

Further, it is nowhere near as interesting as the shooting sports discussion going on. My concern at the moment is whether or not the fires to the north of us will drive cougars and coyotes down the canyon and out here on to the alluvial fan where we live. Maybe it is time to start “carrying” on a regular basis!

When Atlatls are outlawed, only outlaws will have Atlatls! Atlatls can bring down bison; they are nothing to scoff at. They are as deadly today as they were 20,000 years ago! They are the weapon of choice of Mesoamerican Marauders. Ban the atlatl!

Drop depends on the grains. Use 40 grain and dial in at least a 30 inch drop. If you shoot in the morning, windage is not too bad. But even on windy days, windage is less of a problem for accuracy than bullet drop. I like to shoot at the Eagle Cap range in NE Oregon which has targets out to 1000 yds. The berms are dirt with grass flattops. I walk the bullets up the berms (allows me to see the dirt puffs) till I have the target zeroed in. We use microphones and receivers so we can hear the plink. It is just way fun!

Speaking of shooting something that hurts, I shot a 50 cal revolver that left a bruise on the thumb pad of my hand that was so bad it showed up on the other side! Ouch!!! I missed the paper target and shot the wood frame in two. Big, FAT bullets! I didn’t shoot it twice.

But the fun really starts when I shoot the pre-1900’s shotgun at the cowboy shoots. The damn thing is so long that I can’t pump the next cartridge in without taking it off my shoulder but then the butt end gets caught between my shoulder and the “mammary” on that side. I’m not fast in that event due to the “mammary” thing, but I never miss. I get along quite well with shotguns.

“It is not new that the stratosphere impacts the troposphere,” says Reichler, an associate professor of atmospheric sciences at the University of Utah. “It also is not new that the troposphere impacts the ocean. But now we actually demonstrated an entire link between the stratosphere, the troposphere and the ocean.” Note that their observational data matches their models.

Government burn $70 billion a year subsidizing renewables, and wild claims of “fossil fuel subsidies” debunked

by Joanne Nova

When activists protest about “fossil fuel” subsidies, it is a case of extreme-wordsmithing. Like chinese-whispers, the truth gets turned 180 degrees. It takes a string of half truths stacked in a series to come up with something which is so completely counter to reality it is meaningless.

The reality is that governments around the world are paying billions each year to prop up an industry that is inefficient, uncompetitive and unproductive. It’s money that is desperately needed in health or in real medical and scientific research.

“More than US$70 billion of support is provided by governments to renewable energy production and consumption worldwide.”

[IEA (The International Energy Agency, which promotes “green energy” in it’s header)]

That’s an annual figure. And the plan seems to be even more subsidies. (I thought the plan was to make renewables competitive?)

Source: IEA Key Graphs…

Source: IEA Key Graphs
Could it be $200 billion?
This UN group has an even higher number. I don’t know exactly how they define “green stimulus” spending, perhaps it was a one-off:

[UNCTAD]

“Green government procurement will also be essential in the early stages of a transition to a green economy. In 2009, global green stimulus […]

45% of the people are right 50% of the time and wrong 50% of the time.
45% of the people are wrong 50% of the time and right 50% of the time
10% don’t know and the other 10% don’t understand percentages!

I have spotted a problem, specifically, a glaring omission, on the Ocean. There is records of sea level for several years, yet there are no records of sea level before that, making it impossible to compare this level with past level to see how significant, or insignificant, it is.

Needed, sea level since the last ice age, to compare our current sea level and sea level rise to (shows that current rise is small by comparison, and not accelerating), sea level since the MWP including the LIA, to show whether our rise is “unprecedented” or happened 1000 years ago when it was just as warm, and to show the change from the LIA to now. Finally, and at the very least, sea level since the start of accurate modern measurements, to see if the current rate of rise has actually sped up with the rise in CO2, or whether it has stayed the same.

The simple fact is, if the world is warming, the ice will be melting, and the sea will be rising, specifically, the rise will be rapidly accelerating. If it is not, then we know the world is not warming. Simply put, we have a worldwide built in thermometer, sea level, which will tell us if the world is warming. Word of mouth says it is not, yet I see now graph here to show that to others. Add that.

\\ The natural gas and oil industry received $2.8 billion in total subsidies //

Can we take a moment to itemize exactly what these $2.8 billion in “total subsidies” are?

The end result of the thread was that
$980 Million was for the difference between percentage depletion and cost depletion, a difference in tax treatment of mineral asset acquisition and evaluation cost that is available only to small royalty owners and small operators. Percentage depletion was removed from everyone else in 1976. Later on I remarked that this can only be some sort of estimate because if you are using percentage depletion, no one can know what your cost depletion would have been.

$70 Million in some government research programs, the lartest two of which were $26M in unconventional fossil energy tech and $24M in Natural Gas Tech.

$30 Million in passive loss carry forward.

That left us about $1700 million short. Back and forth a couple of comments and we concluded that the balance had to be Ethanol blending subsidy to refiners.

So there you have it. Oil and Gas subsidies in the US are
>60% Biofuel subsidy to blend into gasoline.
<30% a short-form tax accounting method
<10% government research.
Links and detail are provide in the comment thread.

Re your “I have spotted a problem, specifically, a glaring omission, on the Ocean. There is records of sea level for several years, yet there are no records of sea level before that, making it impossible to compare this level with past level to see how significant, or insignificant, it is.

Needed, sea level since the last ice age, to compare our current sea level and sea level rise to (shows that current rise is small by comparison, and not accelerating), sea level since the MWP including the LIA, to show whether our rise is “unprecedented” or happened 1000 years ago when it was just as warm, and to show the change from the LIA to now.”

Anthony, skeet are not fit for the dinner table. There are warnings to not even feed them to swine. They are sometimes considered to cause a nuisance to my goofy neighbor when I attempt to reduce the numbers that sometimes occupy the shed.

A redneck approach is normally used to reduce the numbers. A 20 ga. is my choice with 1 oz # 7 1/2 in a Remington pump. The walk around approach is the preferred set-up. The shooter walks around a 30 yd circle beginning at the point where the skeets are flushed from. One box of shells is used per hunt which lasts about 4-5 minutes (Any more and the barrel gets too hot to handle). As the skeets are flushed and the shooter walks the circle they pass from varying angles beginning left to right , then overhead and close , and then ending flushing from right yo left. No time to call “pull” ’cause the game is to cause confusion to the shooter by the flusher. Split doubles, stacked doubles, fast singles, high and low ones. Score can be 30 or more out of 25 skeets thrown if you cripple one and then break the cripple again. Warning: Don’t touch that barrel! Points lost if the shooter gets hit by a skeet. Looser sometimes eats crow.

Pamela, if one doesn’t burn powder and try they will never do what may seem impossible. I like impacts on the football size rock at 800 yards w/ 7 mm mag and the 12 ga foster type slugs on a 5 gal size rock at 175 yards seems to draw profanity from the unbelievers. It will only happen if you try.

Stephen Rasey says:
September 24, 2012 at 2:22 pmSo there you have it. Oil and Gas subsidies in the US are
>60% Biofuel subsidy to blend into gasoline.
<30% a short-form tax accounting method
<10% government research.
Links and detail are provide in the comment thread.

That was an excellent thread. I will look forward to JoNova’s site coming back online to compare what you have here with her figures from Down Under. This is playing a little fast and loose with the word “subsidies.” But on the bright side, at least they know deep down it is a bad word. lol

But here http://www.ipcc.ch/ipccreports/sres/land_use/index.php?idp=24, it says “[NBP] includes… other processes leading to loss of living and dead organic matter (harvest, forest clearance, and fire, etc.)… NBP for the decade 1989-1998 has been estimated to be 0.7 � 1.0 Gt C yr-1”. This is clearly the same as “net terrestrial uptake” as listed on the first link I gave.

And on the first link I gave, the two quantities are added together.

So the question is, if I clear a forest in order to harvest its wood, will it be counted as both “forest clearance” and as “wood harvesting”? Will it be double-counted?